Monthly Archives: May 2015

Green Arts Initiative Member Survey

Creative Carbon Scotland,

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Help shape the future of the Green Arts Initiative by sharing your thoughts through our member survey!

Over 2015, Creative Carbon Scotland will be working to develop the GAI into a collaborative community of practice, with increased member communication and benefits. We want to hear from our members: what would best aid them to become more sustainable, and how they want the GAI to work.

We hope our existing GAI members will help decide how the community develops, what resources you need to progress, and how you want to interact as a GAI member in future.  The survey is open until the end of June, after which we will be analysing the results, telling you what your fellow members said, and moving forward with your suggested developments.

As a thank you gesture, a prize draw (for a sustainable and edible treat!) will be held upon closure of the questionnaire once responses have been gathered.

The member survey can be found on SurveyMonkey here.

The post Green Arts Initiative Member Survey appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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Updates and Reflections: Carbon Recording and Reporting Training Programme

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

What is the Carbon Recording and Reporting training programme?

In December 2014 we launched our Carbon Recording and Reporting workshop and training programme, which delivered guidance to arts organisations across Scotland about recording, understanding and ultimately reducing carbon emissions generated by their activities. The training programme was specifically aimed to support Creative Scotland’s Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) in working towards the mandatory carbon emissions reporting requirement, which will come into effect for the period of April 2015 – March 2016. As part of their annual reporting in 2016, all regularly funded organisations will be required to complete a report on their environmental performance. They will be expected to develop an environmental policy and to calculate their annual carbon footprint for inclusion in the report.

The focus at this stage is very much on helping organisations develop systems for recording their emissions and impact. Experience has shown that reductions tend to emerge from the processes of policy development and efficient recording.

Creative Carbon Scotland’s training activities are designed to support the environmental aims of Creative Scotland, which include:

  • Set annual reporting requirements for organisations
  • Set expectations for sustainable behaviour
  • Produce annual report on sector environmental impact
  • Tell positive stories about sustainable behaviour
  • Share good practice and case studies
  • Help the Arts influence the wider public

What have we learnt from the Carbon Recording and Reporting training programme? 

We have now held 15 workshops throughout Scotland and our carbon reduction advisers have met with around 100 organisations to discuss and develop their individual action plans for recording and reporting emissions. These meetings also helped identify and communicate each organisation’s specific actions towards recording emissions data and included any carbon reduction ambitions. Through this process, we have found that most organisations are making substantial efforts to operate sustainably but this is often informal and at a grass roots level. The introduction of mandatory carbon reporting has encouraged more engagement at a management level.

Many organisations are very small and have very few permanent staff; several training participants who were new to the concept of recording emissions raised concerns about the amount of extra time and effort that would be involved in recording the information needed for reporting. For most, the need to change existing systems would involve additional effort, which they felt might not be available. At the same time, we have come across many examples of good practice and excellent ideas already existing within the cultural sector that we hope to share.

For the organisations that had already developed an environmental policy and an established habit of recording data, all reported having benefited from the improved understanding and control that these standards brought to the operations of their organisation. From discussions held during our training sessions, it was clear that the process of change for organisations was evolutionary and worked best when existing processes were improved. The benefits that came about ranged from discovering malfunctioning heating controls to improved organisation of tours – both of which led to substantial cost reductions for the organisations involved.

What is next for the Carbon Recording and Reporting training programme?

We are in the process of reviewing reports from adviser meetings to identify common themes, difficulties, and good practice. Discussions during workshops and reports resulting from the adviser meetings have already highlighted some areas of uncertainty on how to realistically reflect activities. We hope to develop guidance on how to report on some of the less clear cut impacts such as fuel use by tenants, recording volunteer travel and further apportioning of shared activities.

For the near future, we are hoping to provide an improved reporting form that will incorporate a standard emissions calculation step. This will enable reporting organisations to see the relative carbon impacts of different emissions sources more easily and with more confidence.

We will soon be updating our Training web resources to include further documentation of the ideas discussed during training workshops and adviser meetings. A variety of resources have already been published on our website, including Creating and Developing Your Environmental Policy,  Guide to Tackling Waste, Guide to Measuring Audience Travel and numerous Case Studies of best-practice examples. We have now also published a Frequently Asked Questions blog post following our winter training programme to help address some common questions about this process.

Be sure to check our News section, Twitter and Facebook for future updates on carbon reporting resources, training and workshops, as we will be publishing a series of reflections and updates on this process through the month of May.

Read our next post in this series, Carbon Reporting for Creative Scotland RFOs: Frequently Asked Questions.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons- PhotoHannah

The post Updates and Reflections: Carbon Recording and Reporting Training Programme appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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Call for Collaborators: “Field_Notes – HYBRID MATTERs”

ecoartscotland

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Call for collaborators: “Field_Notes – HYBRID MATTERs”

From 14th – 20th September 2015
at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, Lapland/Finland

Application deadline: 29th of May 2015
http://hybridmatters.net/calls/field-notes-hybrid-matters

—–

“Field_Notes – HYBRID MATTERs”

“Field_Notes – HYBRID MATTERs” is an art&science field laboratory organized by the Finnish Society of Bioart at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in Lapland/Finland. Five groups, hosted by Marko Peljhan and Matthew Biederman (Arctic Perspective Initiative – API) with Leena Valkeapää, Richard Pell and Lauren Allen (Center for Postnatural History), Antye Greie aka AGF, Antti Tenetz and Lea Schick will work for one week in the sub-Arctic Lapland. Together with a team of five
selected collaborators, they will develop, test and evaluate specific interdisciplinary approaches in relation to the notion of Hybrid Ecology.

—–

Application process:

We are looking for 25 artists, scientists or other practitioners, which are interested to collaborate and work in one of the five groups.

Find more information and the online application system at http://hybridmatters.net/calls/field-notes-hybrid-matters

We warmly welcome artists, scientists and practitioners from different fields to apply.

—–

Conditions:

We will pay for the journey from Helsinki to Kilpisjärvi and back, as well as for full board and accommodation at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station for the whole working week.

Participants from outside of Finland have to take care about travel to Helsinki and possible accommodation in Helsinki themselves.

—–

“Field_Notes – HYBRID MATTERs” is a project by the Finnish Society of Bioart and part of the HYBRID MATTERs and CHANGING WEATHERS program. It is co-funded by the Nordic Culture Fund, the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture.
http://hybridmatters.net
http://www.changingweathers.net/ 

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.

Go to EcoArtScotland

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2 Degrees Festival

news

1-7 June, 2015.

ART.
CLIMATE.
ACTION.

2 Degrees Festival asks:

What can we do together to create a sustainable future?

International artists present cutting-edge responses to climate change, urging you to act now to build a more positive future.

A programme of performance, debate and public installations will take place in tree-tops, office blocks and theatres in and around Toynbee Studios, at the crossroads of the East End and The City.

2 Degrees Festival is Artsadmin’s biennial celebration of art, environment and activism. It aims to inspire, connect, and empower people to create solutions for a sustainable future.

Join in – bring your friends.

For more information visit the 2 Degrees Tumblr site, follow #2DegreesFestivalon Twitter and/or sign-up to our mailing list to receive updates.

2 Degrees Festival is delivered by Artsadmin and supported by Arts Council England, the Ashden Trust, the European Commission Culture Programme as part of Imagine 2020.

No.9 News

news

Water’s Edge

Photograph by Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images Chinstrap penguins, Zavodovski and Visokoi Islands, South Sandwich Islands, November and December, 2009

Water’s Edge is a Pam Am commissioned large-scale photographic exhibition exploring the often tenuous balance where human civilization, land, and water meet. This exhibition will bring to light recent concerns regarding the sustainability of our global fresh water supply and the impact that human development is having on this precious life-sustaining resource.

Curated by Andrew Davies, Water’s Edge will feature works by six exemplary Pan American photographers: Edward Burtynsky, James Balog, Sebastiao Salgado, Cristina Mittermeier, Jorge Uzon and Gustavo Jononovich.

The Exhibition will take place at Union Station and Pearson International Airport with an opening launch on July 9th to coincide with the Pan Am Games. There will also be a symposium on fresh water issues at Evergreen Brick Works featuring the Artists and their work on July 10th. More information on the opening of Water’s Edge and tickets for the symposium will be announced at a later date.

No.9 Eco-Art-Fest @ Todmorden Mills

No.9 is excited to announce the return of the Eco-Art-Fest at Todmorden Mills this summer! The festival will run from June 20 to September 13 on Fridays (12PM – 10PM), Saturdays (12PM – 10PM) and Sundays (12PM – 5PM). No.9 will feature four new artists, two returning artists, art tours, educational workshops, and delicious food and beer! There will be live music every Saturday from 7PM – 9PM. Register for Handscapes, Poetics of Architecture, and music workshops by contacting Emily Foster (e.foster@no9.ca). Drop-in for Clay Making workshops (Noon – 7pm), and Public Art Tours (Noon, 2, 4, and 6pm) daily. More information will be available soon!

Imagining My Sustainable City Hamilton

No.9, in partnership with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and Evergreen CityWorks, officially launched IMSC Hamilton in January, with a total of 14 schools across Hamilton scheduled for 2015. The call to action aligns with No.9’s and Evergreen’s mission to educate the next generation about the development of sustainable communities.

No.9 continues to engage members of the OAA as volunteers during IMSC, and practicing professionals in the Hamilton area are encouraged to contact No.9 to learn more about volunteer opportunities.

Following the completion of the first nine schools in June, there will be a culminating exhibit to showcase the students’ work at the Lime Ridge Mall. The exhibit will highlight the ideas and innovations to invited dignitaries, press, and school board representatives, as well as the public. Stay tuned for more information!<

Zone 10 Pan Am Path Art Relay

In preparation for the 2015 Pan Am/Parapan Am Games, No.9, in partnership with Friends of the Pan Am Path, Centennial College, and in Consultation with Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts, has commissioned Toronto artist Sean Martindale to develop and realize a wall art installation across the north facing walls of the Centennial College Ashtonbee campus. Sean will mentor four Centennial College students to develop an installation that highlights the potential of the hydro corridor’s sprawling grasslands as a local attraction.

In March, No.9 and Sean engaged 25 students from the Wexford Collegiate School for the Arts in a half-day design workshop, and their visions for the wall art installation will be considered, and potentially implemented, in the final design. The official mural unveiling is scheduled for Friday, July 17 from 3PM – 5PM.

Call for Proposals ~ ASTR 2015 Working Session: “Ecology and/of/in Performance”

news

Growing out of the performance and ecology seminar at ASTR 2005/Toronto, and continuing as a research group atASTR’s 2010/Seattle, 2012/Nashville, and 2014/Baltimore conferences, this research group has been at the fore of the emergent field of performance and ecology. In 2015, in response to ASTR’s theme “Debating the Stakes in Theatre and Performance Scholarship,” we turn our attention to the ecological stakes in performance, with particular focus on recent developments in postcolonial eco-theatre, environmental justice, eco-materialisms, and the anthropocene/climate change. Drawing together research and performance from the Global South and the Global North, and building on the anthologies (such as Readings in Performance and Ecology, edited by Theresa May and Wendy Arons, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), publications, and research-engaged performance spawned by this working group over the past decade, this session will forward the conversation by calling for inquiries into how theatre and artistic performances, in an age of intense climate change, engage/critique/reveal ecological discourses embedded in postcolonialism, eco-materialisms, and activism. 

Pursuing what May calls “ecodramaturgy” (2011), this year’s session will focus on how theatre and artistic performance engages four emerging threads (in anticipation of a second volume of essays on performance and ecology): 1) urgency and eco-theater and performance in the age of the anthropocene; 2) eco-materialisms, including the agency of/in material formation; 3) postcolonial eco-theater; and 4) environmental justice and activism. These threads have an uneasy relationship with one another: scholarship on the anthropocene has often fallen prey to an apocalypticism that erases postcolonial and class-based concerns, while much eco-activism has been accused of being so local in scope that it disregards trans-global environmental issues and effects. However, by putting these four recent trends in environmental scholarship in dialogue with one another, we propose to debate their interrelatedness and efficacy for and within theatre and performance. 

Specifically, papers might pursue the following questions: 

  • How does performance practice reveal, engage, and/or negotiate the urgent call to recognize human ecological influence in the age of the anthropocene? 
  • How do interpretations of climate change and other international ecological issues in performance contribute to a global understanding of human influence? Do these performance practices make geographical boundaries more or less permeable and/or political? 
  • How do ideas of eco-materiality inform ecological readings of performance and/or ecological meaning-making in performance? How might eco-materialist engagements in performance productively bring awareness of life, nature, and matter? How do these engagements deliberate related future possibilities in ways that also push ecology and performance scholarship in fresh directions? 
  • How might postcolonial and indigenous ecologies critique neoliberal approaches (such as resourcism and extractivism) to current ecological conditions? 
  • How does artistic performance intersect the concerns of social, political and ecological oppressions and/or exclusions in ways that advocate for environmental justice? In what ways does performance practice provoke ecological debate and/or facilitate community engagement in eco-activism? 

Other questions, approaches and topics that clearly address any of the four identified threads of inquiry. 

In advance of the conference, session participants will exchange papers and engage in peer review of one another’s work in order to raise key questions around the threads of:

  1. the anthropocene/climate change in/through performance;
  2. eco-materialisms;
  3. postcolonial eco-theater; and
  4. environmental justice and activism in performance.

We will be holding online discussions around these themes and relevant, related practice, through theASTR website Group function. At the conference, we will be meeting for three hours. Roughly, the first hour and a half will be dedicated to small group discussion around these threads by sub-sets of participants; the second hour and a half will include a round-table discussion in which the sub-groups share the key connections and conundrums emerging from their joint discussion of research and collectively outline a structure and timeline for the next volume of critical essays in this field. 

Please send an abstract of approximately 300 words along with a brief biographical note as a Word attachment to all three Working Session conveners below by May 31st: 

Karen O’Brien, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (obrien@unc.edu) 

Lisa Woynarski, Royal Central School of Speech & Drama (lisa.woynarski@cssd.ac.uk) 

Courtney Ryan, University of California, Los Angeles (crdram12@gmail.com) 

Apply to the Vermi-Prize

Open Calls

wormculture-logoWin accolades from your fans, and $250!

~ HOW? ~  Make art – sculptures, paintings, drawings, videos, poems, net art, music, dance, creative designs, architecture, etc – that celebrates composting worms. See examples of what has been made in this genre on the wormculture.org blog. To stimulate the creation and promotion of cultural works about composting worms, four Vermi-Prizes (each $250 USD) will be awarded to artists who have created excellent new content.

~ WHY? ~  Because more art about worms is a good thing. More vermicomposting (worm composting) is a good thing. And worms need better public relations. Many of the submissions will be posted on the wormculture.org blog. This is not an e-commerce site – and all artists retain all rights to their work. The mission of Wormculture.org is to encourage and promote creative culture around composting worms.

~ SUBMIT ~  Send documentation of  your work (use Dropbox.com or WeTransfer.com, for larger files), or send URL links to your work, along with a short artist statement about it to Amy Youngs via email: ayoungs@gmail.com

~ DEADLINE ~  May 24, 2015. Awards announced in June.

~ WHO ~  Artist Amy M. Youngs initiated this prize as part of her exhibition, VermiCulture Makers Club taking place at the Kentucky School of Art. She has been creating worm-related artworks since 2004, and wants to invite others to join in. She commissioned a new worm-inspired music piece by Krzysztof Topolski, premiering at the exhibition. The honorarium she receives as a visiting artist at the Kentucky School of Art will fund the Vermi-Prizes. She also thanks her employer, the Ohio State University, College of Arts and Sciences, for granting her a sabbatical to pursue this project.

Open Call: Philosophy of the City

Open Calls
  • University of Hong Kong, November 6-7
  • Portland State University, November 21-22
  • Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City, December 3-4

Some description Download and Print the POTC 2015 Flyer

Philosophy of the City has emerged as an international movement. To facilitate global discussions, this conference series aims to establish new channels for dialogue.

Presentations can be in any area of philosophy of the city. Interdisciplinary approaches and neighboring disciplines are welcome. Each conference will feature sessions dedicated to addressing the challenges for ecology, technology, and democracy in current and future cites. At each conference, philosophers will engage in trans-disciplinary discussions with urban planners during special roundtable sessions.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Tensions between political authority and community autonomy
  • Architectural preservation and sustainable buildings
  • The city and social protest
  • Alternatives to gentrification
  • Smart cities, ecological considerations and human flourishing
  • Participatory approaches to budgeting, planning, and environmental regulations
  • Urban food sovereignty
  • Contributions from the history of philosophy to the city’s future
  • Big data and the public good
  • Immigration and citizenship
  • Graffiti and street art
  • New forms of municipal democracy
  • Is housing a public good?
  • Segregation/white flight vs. gentrification/white reterritorialization
  • Securing the city: rethinking police protocols and motivations
  • Ethical measurements: the morality of urban metrics
  • Democratic control of infrastructure
  • Zoning, land-use policy, and the rights of nature
  • Future cities: eco-villages, megacities, or both?
  • Megacities, complexity and justice
  • The quality of local democracy
  • Street harassment; Gender and Public Space
  • The right to a wired city

For more information, please find us on Facebook or Twitter. You can also add “Philosophy of The City” to your research interests onAcademia.

Conference organizing committee: Brian Elliott, Gray Kochhar-Lindgren, Luis Ruben Diaz, and Shane Epting and brought to you by the Philosophy of the City Research Group

Abstracts

Send abstracts to Shane Epting at potc2015@gmail.com by May 31, 2015. Include the city of your choice in the subject line. For submissions in Spanish for Mexico City, send emails to Luis Diaz at the same email address above.

Confirmed Speakers

Hong Kong Keynote Speaker: Daniel A. Bell (Tsinghua University)

Portland Keynote Speaker: Ingrid Leman Stefanovic (Simon Fraser University)
– featuring an invited talk by Robert M. Figueroa (Oregon State University)

Mexico City Keynote Speaker: Lewis Gordon (University of Connecticut)

Announcing SEEDS & SOUL: Indigenous Cultural Exchange and Festival

news

Announcing SEEDS & SOUL: Indigenous Cultural Exchange and Festival | Campaign Launch

Spring Shout out!

Last year’s trans-national & trans-indigenous SEED project collaborations are sprouting a strong new vision…

DANCING EARTH is teaming up with AUDIOPHARMACY PRESCRIPTIONS COLLECTIVE to bring the San Francisco Bay Area’s first

SEEdS-SOUL LOGO-2

SEEDS & SOUL is an indigenous-led, women-led festival harnessing the power of music, performance, arts, nourishing food, as well as respectfulcultural and knowledge exchanges to strengthen bridges among Indigenous peoples of the Bay Area – rural and urban; local and diasporic.

Date: October 11, 2015
In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day!

Location: Joaquin Miller Park OR Lake Merritt Park in Oakland
or elsewhere that can be sacred, intentional space

DE_Audio_Video-2We need your support to launch this effort, and bring SEEDS & SOUL to the San Fran Bay Area!

Our Hatchfund crowdfunding campaign just launched. It’s an exciting way to give to this community-powered, indigenous-led effort.

All donations to the Hatchfund campaign are tax-deductible,
and we have many life-enriching PERKS to offer!

Click on any of the perks below to see our campaign page, and support this people-powered festival with a tax-deductible donation!

Perks_Banner

Now is the best time to give!

The People’s Match Fund will match your contribution, dollar for dollar, up to the first $1780 raised!

People's Match Fund-1

Earlier in March we raised the People’s Match Fund from close friends through a benefit dinner generously hosted in Oakland’s Bissap Baobab restaurant. The momentum we started a month ago is only increasing as an incredibly wide range of allied communities hear of our ideas, and are stepping into our circle of co-creation!

This wide community engagement is at the core of our vision, and we want to be heartily prepared to support the diversity of hearts and hands that will bring this festival to life!

Photo Credit Nikila Badua

Here are just some of the collaborators who have expressed interest…

Community Collaborators

Here’s where you come in…

Will you join this wave of support, and offer

a donation to support our emerging coalition of artists,

culture-bearers, and community builders?

Some SEEDS take a village…

so Spread The Word About This Festival Campaign!

Click our Facebook links here: Dancing Earth | Audiopharmacy

Email organizations that vibe with SEEDS & SOUL and individuals who might be interested in contributing to Indigenous arts or projects that promote diverse, unified and resilient communities, and positive social change.

Sign up to be an ambassador for this campaign! As an ambassador beyond helping spread the word, you can jump into the behind-the-scenes work of the campaign and festival. Every hour of volunteer help makes a big difference!

Email us if you’d like a packet with more info and helpful materials to spread the word: SeedsAndSoul@gmail.com

A Personal Note from Jo “Love/Speak” Cruz, Rulan Tangen, and Javier Stell-Fresquez:

We know how inundated we often are with requests for money, and that you may or may not be able to provide substantial resources at this moment in time. Just know that any amount makes a difference and, if you are not able to give, helping to spread the word can be equally powerful, and we’re in need of volunteers for this campaign and festival.

We’re making big moves, and bringing in so much awesome energy! All the warmth and generosity is washing over us and pushing us forward.
Love is a force. And we believe it stretches across distance and time. Like the movie Interstellar imagines, our ancestors are perhaps the very source of the gravity that roots us.

With deep gratitude,

Who We Are

Rulan Tangen  - Jo “Love/Speak” Cruz – Javier Stell-Fresquez

Rulan Tangen photos by © Paulo T. Photography

 

Updates and Reflections: Carbon Recording and Reporting Training Programme

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

What is the Carbon Recording and Reporting training programme?

In December 2014 we launched our Carbon Recording and Reporting workshop and training programme, which delivered guidance to arts organisations across Scotland about recording, understanding and ultimately reducing carbon emissions generated by their activities. The training programme was specifically aimed to support Creative Scotland’s Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs) in working towards the mandatory carbon emissions reporting requirement, which will come into effect for the period of April 2015 – March 2016. As part of their annual reporting in 2016, all organisations will be required to complete a report on their environmental performance. They will be expected to develop an environmental policy and to calculate their annual carbon footprint for inclusion in the report.

The focus at this stage is very much on helping organisations develop systems for recording their emissions and impact. Experience has shown that reductions tend to emerge from the processes of policy development and efficient recording.

Creative Carbon Scotland’s training activities are designed to support the environmental aims of Creative Scotland, which include:

  • Set annual reporting requirements for organisations
  • Set expectations for sustainable behaviour
  • Produce annual report on sector environmental impact
  • Tell positive stories about sustainable behaviour
  • Share good practice and case studies
  • Help the Arts influence the wider public

What have we learnt from the Carbon Recording and Reporting training programme? 

We have now held 15 workshops throughout Scotland and our carbon reduction advisers have met with around 100 organisations to discuss and develop their individual action plans for recording and reporting emissions. These meetings also helped identify and communicate each organisation’s specific actions towards recording emissions data and included any carbon reduction ambitions. Through this process, we have found that most organisations are making substantial efforts to operate sustainably but this is often informal and at a grass roots level. The introduction of mandatory carbon reporting has encouraged more engagement at a management level.

Many organisations are very small and have very few permanent staff; several training participants who were new to the concept of recording emissions raised concerns about the amount of extra time and effort that would be involved in recording the information needed for reporting. For most, the need to change existing systems would involve additional effort, which they felt might not be available. At the same time, we have come across many examples of good practice and excellent ideas already existing within the cultural sector that we hope to share.

For the organisations that had already developed an environmental policy and an established habit of recording data, all reported having benefited from the improved understanding and control that these standards brought to the operations of their organisation. From discussions held during our training sessions, it was clear that the process of change for organisations was evolutionary and worked best when existing processes were improved. The benefits that came about ranged from discovering malfunctioning heating controls to improved organisation of tours – both of which led to substantial cost reductions for the organisations involved.

What is next for the Carbon Recording and Reporting training programme?

We are in the process of reviewing reports from adviser meetings to identify common themes, difficulties, and good practice. Discussions during workshops and reports resulting from the adviser meetings have already highlighted some areas of uncertainty on how to realistically reflect activities. We hope to develop guidance on how to report on some of the less clear cut impacts such as fuel use by tenants, recording volunteer travel and further apportioning of shared activities.

For the near future, we are hoping to provide an improved reporting form that will incorporate a standard emissions calculation step. This will enable reporting organisations to see the relative carbon impacts of different emissions sources more easily and with more confidence.

We will soon be updating our Training web resources to include further documentation of the ideas discussed during training workshops and adviser meetings, including a Frequently Asked Question section for a convenient and simple reference to use during the recording and reporting process. A variety of resources have already been published on our website, including Creating and Developing Your Environmental Policy,  Guide to Tackling Waste, Guide to Measuring Audience Travel and numerous Case Studies of best-practice examples.

Be sure to check our News section, Twitter and Facebook for future updates on carbon reporting resources, training and workshops, as we will be publishing a series of reflections and updates on this process through the month of May.

Image: Flickr Creative Commons- PhotoHannah

The post Updates and Reflections: Carbon Recording and Reporting Training Programme appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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